


Malcolm Tucker and the New Addition

by rubywallace25



Series: Tucker, Cassidy, Smith and Kline [4]
Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-10-30 07:38:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 15,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubywallace25/pseuds/rubywallace25
Summary: Malcolm and Sam are now proud adpoted parents to Chanelle Smith (12) and Dean Kline (3).There's a new addition to the family.





	1. The Drunken Robot

Sam Cassidy-Tucker bolts down the corridor, which inexplicably seems to lengthen with every footfall.

She’s soaking wet, from her light summer jacket, through her shirt and down into her bra and pants.

Rain is the last thing she had expected.

Maybe it was true, that old saying about the English bringing the weather with them, perhaps she’d brought the rain.

Sam pauses at a nurse’s station to breathlessly ask for directions.

That god Malcolm’s not with her, the run would have finished him off for sure.

Learning that she’s at least going in the right direction, Sam hurries on, giving the watch on her wrist an errant glance.

It’s the middle of the afternoon, so does that mean Malcolm and the kids will be asleep?

Time zones are hard.

It’s hard to believe that there had once been a time when Sam had actually been good at this sort of thing, arriving on time, getting Malcolm to where he always need to be, knowing everyone’s name.

Now, Sam struggles to remember her own name most days.

With a set of swing doors in front of her, Sam slows her pace; she wants to be able to breathe.

And then she stops completely.

The sound of a high pitched wail causes Sam to halt in her tracks.

She hadn’t thought this through, why hadn’t she thought this through?

Jumping on a plane, flying thousands of miles, leaving Malcolm and the kids all alone at home, Sam had done all that without ever thinking about the next bit, this bit.

From the outset, she’d known that Malcolm thought it was all a bad idea, he’d said as much, and in part Sam had agreed with him, but, but then her Mum had been too sick to fly, and everything had started happening all at once, and before she knew it, Sam was disembarking in bloody Melbourne. 

Melbourne in Australia, where everyone is unsurprisingly Australian, and Sam is thousands of miles away from home, and Malcolm.

She can do this.  
Sam has dealt with worse than this, faced it down, and carried on.

If that’s the case, why won’t her feet move?

"Just get a grip, you look INSANE.”

Sam utters to herself cautiously under her breath.

That’s it, that’s it, move.

She moves, one foot in front of the other, imagining as she does so, that she probably looks a lot like some drunken robot.

That’s it, keep going.

Sweeping rain splattered tendrils of hair away from her face, Sam marches through the doors.

After a brief conversation with another nurse, Sam finally finds herself standing outside of the room, late and wet, but hopefully her presence will be enough.

"I’m sorry it took me so long, my flight was delayed, then I couldn’t find a taxi, it rained, I…”

Sam is stopped short by the sight that greets her, the vision of her non-identical twin sister cradling a baby.

Her baby…nephew or niece.

"Sssh, try to keep it down, I’ve just got him off.”

Bex warns her with a tired looking smile.

Him…

Him…

"Him, as in he?”

Sam hears herself saying ridiculously.

"Him, as in ‘oh my god, my daughter has a penis’.”

Bex shoots back, as Sam sits heavily down in the chair next to her sister’s bed.

So, a nephew then.

Sam is an Aunt, Sam has a nephew, a proper one, not an inherited one though Malcolm’s evil sister.

"You can be the fifth person in the world to hold him, if you like.”

Sam shrinks back from this, holding, she can’t do holding, but looking, looking is good.

Her brand new baby nephew is the prettiest baby in the world, ever, that’s a fact, people may disagree, but Sam is certain, on this she will not budge.

He is perfect.

"Fifth, who were the other four?”

Sam asks.

"I don’t know, at the time I was being cut into, it’s a bit of a blur, but his Dad dropped by.”

His Dad, the married one with all the other children.

Sam lifts her eyes from her nephew to study her sister face.

"I don’t want to talk about it, not right now at least.”

Bex warns her.

Sam isn’t happy, but she agrees, after all this is her sister’s day.

Not her’s, this will never be her’s.

She forces herself to stop thinking like that, and goes back to cooing at her perfect nephew.

"Does he have a name?”

Bex’s face lights up, Sam has never seen her sister looking so happy.

"I was thinking, Sam. Well, Samuel, not sure about a middle name.”


	2. Prawn Crackers and School Discos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 'team building' t-shirt is reference to a line in the Flight of the Conchords' song 'Business Time', which is fantastic.

Malcolm munches on a prawn cracker.

He takes the opportunity of Sam being in the toilet to stretch his long legs down the length of the sofa.

He eats another prawn cracker, before giving the television at least some portion of his attention.

The film plays, but Malcolm has forgotten what they’re actually watching because tonight is Sam’s choice for ‘movie night’.

Movie night Jesus, the words Malcolm Tucker and movie night, they just seem so, so domestic.

Sam has fully domesticated him…and he loves it.

Before Chanelle and Dean came along they didn’t have a telly, which was fine, because for Malcolm at least not having a telly meant they could fill the bits where they weren’t talking with lots, and lots of sex.

Now they have a telly, two kids, and slightly less sex.

Malcolm hears Sam’s bare feet against the polished floorboard, as she exits the down stairs loo, and hurries back into the living room.

He takes few moments to behold his glorious wife, somehow Sam manages to make a baggy old ‘team building’ t-shirt, and leggings look sexy.

Instead of joining his on the sofa, well basically lying on top of him as he’d hoped, Sam makes her way to the window, and peers out through the wooden slats.

Malcolm eyes his watch, it’s ten forty in the PM. 

"Come on love, come away from the window.”

He semi pleads with her, semi, because he knows she’s not listening to him.

Chanelle is at a party, well not a party more a school disco, disco…Christ he’s old.

Anyway, Chanelle is at a event where there will be dancing, pretty frocks, and some boys bussed in from a nearby school.

To give her credit, Chanelle hadn’t seemed all that interested in the prospect, her stupidly named fried Artemisia Drake-daughter of Mary Drake, had been in paroxysm of delight, clearly the girl didn’t get out much.

Ten o’clock had been the appointed time for Chanelle to come back from the party, Mary Drake was the deliver the children herself.

Ten has come and gone, and Sam is like a cat on a hot tin roof.   
"This isn’t funny Malc, what if something has happened. I’m going to try her phone, again.”

Sam leaves the window only to head for her phone, which is ‘resting’ on the coffee table.

Malcolm watches as Sam’s face darkens as Chanelle’s phone clearly goes to voicemail, again.

He enjoys another prawn cracker as Sam leaves a hollow sounding message.

Malcolm knows Sam well enough to know that there’s no point in trying, she’s worked herself up into a fever pitch, and that’s how she’ll stay until Chanelle walks back though the front door, with that in mind, it doesn’t stop him from saying…

"Come on love, come and sit down.”

He stretches out a hand towards her.

"I just don’t understand Mary, we agreed she’d bring Chanelle home at 10, she hasn’t even called to explain why she’s so late.”

Malcolm can’t believe he’s readying himself to stand up for Mary Drake, but in all fairness, he has no idea how that woman does his old job, working with a government that’s even more incompetent than his own had been, while simultaneously trying to have a family life.

Mary turns up for things, parents evenings, pie throwing competitions, she’s always there, her iron bob easy to spot in the crowd.

After shafting Steve Fleming, Malcolm had missed every single one of his ex-wife Yvonne’s birthdays, he’d gone days without seeing her, in the end, she’d been someone he woke up with most mornings, and occasionally shagged.

Poor Yvonne.

"Some shit storms probably blown up. Chanelle’s probably sitting in some office in Number 10 with a colouring book for the under 5’s.”

Chanelle will love that.

Malcolm pulls himself up from the comfy warmth of the sofa, to stand in front of Sam who is pouting. 

God, he loves it when she pouts, or basically breathes.

He wraps his arms around Sam, pulling her into a reassuring hug, feeling her body as she slowly uncoils and begins to relax.

Pulling back, Malcolm takes the chance to risk a quick kiss.

The beginnings of a smile creep slowly into the corner of Sam’s lovely mouth.

Usually, around this point Malcolm would suggest that they run up stairs and hump like a couple of crazed…gibbons.

Gibbons…really…

But he knows how such a suggestion would be met, Sam’s not in the mood for any monkey business…

Monkey business, he needs to brush up on his technique.

The door bell rings.

The door bell, Malcolm jumps back from Sam as her face instantly turns to thunder.

Everyone knows, well the people who matter, at least are aware, that the door bell of the Cassidy-Tucker residence is not to be rung after seven at night, on account of the fact that Dean will be sleeping.

Malcolm hears the familiar shout from above them as Dean is rudely awaken. 

"I am going to kill, Mary.”

Sam warns, and Malcolm knows that she means it.

Following Sam into the hall, Malcolm starts to trudge up the stairs as the front door is thrust open.

"Bex.”

Malcolm stops suddenly and half turns on the stairs.

Bex, Sam’s non-identical twin sister is standing on their doorstop babe in arms.

Babe in arms, Malcolm doesn’t like this; his dark senses left over from all the ‘evil’ as Sam calls it, suddenly begin to tingle.

"What are you doing here?”

Sam greets her sister, clearly completely stunned by her sudden appearance.

Slowly Malcolm edges his way back down the stairs.

"It’s over. I’ve left Chris. We didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

So she hopped on a plane with a baby and flew thousands of miles, Malcolm doesn’t like this at all. 

Finding his space next to Sam, Malcolm studies her sister, who looks frazzled and on the point of immediate tears.

The baby, or Sammy Davis Jr, as Malcolm likes to refers to his wife’s nephew in his head begins to squall, and it’s at that point when Chanelle and Mary finally show up.

Mary takes one look at Bex and the baby, and Malcolm can tell what she’s thinking.

Chanelle appears pissed off. 

"Apologies Sam, I got called into a meeting, shortly after picking up the girls.”

No wonder Chanelle looks so miserable.


	3. Charleston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Chanelle...  
> Mary's assistant is Emma Messenger.

Malcolm is tired.

When he raises his head up from his pillow, it’s fair to say he’s endured one of the worst night’s sleep in recent memory.

The baby, Sam’s nephew, who is confusingly also named Sam, had practically screamed the clock around, his Mother, Sam’s sister Bex had been useless, jet lag hitting her almost the moment she crossed the threshold of their home.

Sam had spent most of the night with the baby, and Malcolm had split his time between her, and Dean.

Thank God it’s Saturday, no school, no playgroup.

Malcolm rolls over turning towards Sam, but Sam is missing, the empty space next to him is rumpled and cold.

With a groan, he pulls himself up, his legs coming to rest over the edge of the bed.

Bone tired.

What had ever convinced him that he could still have a baby at his age, oh yeah, the fact that he was married to a woman twenty years younger than him.

Stupid old fool.

He always gets grumpy or maudlin when he’s tired.

Standing up, Malcolm fishes his dressing gown off the back of a nearby chair, dragging it over his shoulders with a yawn.  
Leaving the bedroom is a bit of a blur, perhaps he falls back to sleep, but once on the stairs he seems to wake up again, the sound of kids chatter and the radio mingle.

With every step he takes Malcolm feels more awake, more like himself.

The kitchen smells like burnt toast, Chanelle is sitting at the table munching on her traditional breakfast of chard bread and butter, her brother Dean is next to her happily sloppy cereal and milk down his front, and finally Sam, Sam is there holding the baby in her arms, completely in love.

Malcolm swallows thickly, knowing that this is all his wife has ever wanted.

He plants a kiss on the top of Sam’s head, and notes that Chanelle’s eyes don’t roll with disgust in the way they normal do, no, she’s too busy staring at the baby.

"Where did Mary take you last night?” 

Malcolm asks, as he takes up his seat next to Sam and opposite Chanelle.

Chanelle drags her gaze away from the baby, taking a sulky bite from her toast.

"Dunno, some office. Her snooty assistant, tried to give us colouring books.”

Malcolm would have paid good money to see that.

Part of him still really wants to know what’s going on in the corridors of power, it’s hard to be on the outside, a place he never expected to be.

He pours himself a large mug of black coffee.

Coffee, coffee is a prohibited substance in Sam’s kitchen, he didn’t even know they had any, but there it is and it tastes amazing.

"Artie,” Artemisia Drake, Mary Drake’s daughter, and Chanelle’s best friend.

"Artie, said, that her Mum’s gonna get her a dog.”

Malcolm will believe that when it happens.

Out comes Chanelle’s phone, and Malcolm glances at Sam, who barely notices.

Coffee and phones at the table.

"Can I have this dog,”

Chanelle waves her phone in Malcolm’s face, and he catches the glimpse of a pooch, breed unknown.

"He’s a French Bulldog, and I want to call him Charleston. He’s up for adoption, now. We could get him today.”  
Charleston…

French Bulldog…

Chanelle wants a dog…

It’s all too much to take on at once.

Malcolm looks to Sam for support, but she’s off to baby land.

"We’ve got rabbits.”

Is the best he can come up with.

"I spoke to Laura, I told her I wanted a dog, she said it would be good for me.”

Laura, Chanelle and Dean’s Social Worker.

"My birthday is only two weeks away, and I could have Charleston as my present.”

Two kids…

Two rabbits…

A number of tropical fish…

And a dog…

It’s too much.

"Chanelle, ye know love, most of the dogs they put on the websites for adoption, aren’t actually the ones that are available. They’re just to get you interested in adopting, so that when ye drive all that fucking way in the rain, ye can leave with two monster rabbits.”

Chanelle’s face darkens, and Malcolm’s chest hurts.

"Is that what it was like when you and Sam were shopping for kids, you got conned and ended up with me and Dean, instead?”

It all falls into place now, Malcolm had been too tired to see it before.

Before he can say anything however, Chanelle has up and flounced off.

Malcolm can hear her, as he feet thump against every step on the stairs, and he’s not the only one, baby Sam suddenly explodes into a gale of wails.


	4. The Spanish Conspiracy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, in my head I've cast Sam's parents as Bill Nighy and Lesley Joseph.  
> I can't think of a weirder couple to put together, but somehow I feel it would work.  
> Also I'm just going to leave the essay I have recently written on Colour Coding Clara Osward here...https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/clara-oswald-colour-coding-clara/
> 
> Enjoy.

Malcolm is on the point of ingesting some seriously boring looking granola, when Bex makes an appearance in the kitchen.

Something is wrong.

Malcolm places the spoon back into the bowl, and takes a long slurp from his coffee, and watches.

He notices how surprisingly fresh Bex looks, and recalls the state Sam had returned from Australia in.

He notes the look that briefly passes over his wife’s features like a shadow, and he knows that she’s thinking exactly the same thing.

Sam hands baby Sam over to his Mum.

Malcolm lets Sam do the talking.

"I didn’t think you’d be up yet.”

Poor Bex, Malcolm knows that tone of voice ever so well.

"I didn’t think you’d be up yet.”

"The flight wasn’t that long, but thanks for taking care of him last night, I haven’t properly slept in months.”

Malcolm knows what that feels like.

"Wait, what, I thought you’d flown over from Melbourne?”

At this point Dean makes his presence known, demanding to watch his favourite television show about trains, the theme tune to which, Malcolm knows he won’t be able to get out of his head for the next 9 hours.

So Malcolm exits the kitchen with Dean under one arm, giving Bex his version of a pleasant passing smile, the last word of the conversation he hears between Sam and her sister being SPAIN.

 

Dean is fast asleep across Malcolm’s lap by the time Sam and Bex remerge from the kitchen.

Sam looks as if she has murder on her mind.

"Malcolm, can I borrow you for a moment in the garden?”

It’s rare that Sam ever uses Malcolm’s full name, it’s one of those things she usually does when she’s introducing him to someone for the first time.

He carefully extricates himself from the sleeping Dean, and obediently follows his wife out into the garden, leaving Bex to supervise the boys.

Sam closes the French Windows, and then explodes.

"SHE’S BEEN LIVING WITH MUM AND DAD FOR THREE MONTHS.”

Sam’s face turns a dangerous version of puce.

"NONE OF THEM BOTHERED TO TELL ME. ME.”

Usually Malcolm would try and calm Sam down, but to be honest he’s never actually seen his wife this angry before.

"It all makes sense now, why they didn’t want us to visit them during Passover. Why Dad can barely string a sentence together whenever he’s on SKYPE. She was there in the villa all that time, hiding.”

Sam eyes darken on the word hiding, and if he wasn’t so worried/scared, Malcolm would actually be seriously turned on.

Malcolm pulls himself together enough to point out the fact.

"That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Sam exhales heavily.

"Bex said she thought I knew, she assumed Mum and Dad had told me. She said, she only asked our parents not to spread the news about in case Chris…”

From out of nowhere Malcolm suddenly finds himself growing extremely protective at the mention of Sam’s sister’s ex.

"This wank stain Chris, is he violent?”

Sam’s forehead knits into a tight frown.

"No, I don’t think so. I think the main issue is the fact that he wanted his cake, that’s his wife and kids, and Bex and Sammy, too.”

Sam explains, as she begins to pace up and down.

"Why come here?”

Sam immediately halts mid-pace, and fixes Malcolm with an accusing stare.

"Weren’t you listening? She’s been living with my parents for three months.”  
No wonder she needed to escape.

With the best will in the world Malcolm understand completely where his wife and her sister are coming from.

Although he likes Frank and Lesley, Malcolm always feels as if he needs to a lie down in a very dark room after spending any time with them, that or just start drinking again.

"They’re not coming here, are they?”

Malcolm asks his voice thick with trepidation.

"God, I hope not.”

With all the anger now expelled, Sam shuffles forward, resting her head against Malcolm’s chest.

He smiles down at the top of her head, pulling his wife into the warmth of his body.

Ideally Malcolm would like to stay this way forever, but then he remembers Chanelle.

Well, he doesn’t actually remember Chanelle, more he happens to glance up, and spots her staring down at them with disgust from her bedroom window.

"Chanelle, wants a dog for her birthday.”


	5. Bedroom Fun Under the Bigtop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just some Malcolm and Sam fluff, feel free to imagine how terrible Sam's nightie is.

Saturday was a bust.

What with Chanelle’s sulking, young Sammy’s wailing, Sam senior acting like a cat on a hot tin roof, and Malcolm’s sleep deprivation, the only person who seemed to enjoy himself at all was Dean, who spent an exciting day running like a mad person around the garden.

"And, what did Laura say about the dog?”

Sam asks as she pulls back the covers and slips into bed next to Malcolm.

Malcolm in turn tries to pretend he hasn’t been googling pictures of French Bulldogs, before turning to face her.

All thoughts of sulky teens, dogs with weird ears, and social workers fly out of his head at the sight of Sam.

"Jesus, fucking Christmas, woman. What the fuck are ye wearing?”

Firstly, Sam is wearing what appears to be a nightdress.

An actually nightdress, like the sort his Mam use to wear.

Secondly, Sam’s nightdress could easily, and this is no exaggeration, do the local travelling circus a favour if it ever came to town without a tent.

Thirdly the fucking thing is a ghastly shade of blancmange pink.

And finally, Malcolm ducks his head under the covers just to make sure, yes, the whole terrible thing stops just around Sam’s ankles.

"It’s my nightie.”

Sam explains.

Malcolm’s not sure what’s happening here, but he’s pretty certain his wife has been swapped with something grown in a pod.

"Ye’re, WH-AT.”

"Keep the noise down, you’ll wake the baby.”

Sam shushes him with an irritated frown.

Now Malcolm knows he’s fallen into some weird, alternate Universe, where he’s actually accidentally married his Mother.

He shivers at the thought.

"I’ll wake the baby, fuck me.”

"Malc, this is serious, what did Laura say about the dog?”

The dog, how can Sam think of a dog at a time like this?

"I am being serious, what the fuck are ye wearing? You’ve essentially gone from being allergic to wearing clothes in bed, which is fine,”

Malcolm grins.

"To this, swathed in fabric.”

He gestures towards his wife.

"I like it, its cosy.”

Sam pouts adorably, and Malcolm starts to find himself not entirely minding the circus tent. 

"Cosy, Jesus.”

He spots the hint of a smile slip into Sam’s lovely mouth, and he knows exactly what that means.

With calculating innocence, Sam leans across him to put his tablet on his bedside table.

Her hair brushes against his nose, and he smells that familiar tang of her expensive vanilla scented conditioner for brunettes.

Before moving back to her own spot in the bed, Sam catches Malcolm’s eye, and says in a sweet tone.

"You don’t think I’m sexy?”

Wicked, wicked woman.

Malcolm’s face twists into a smile, he likes this game.

"Sexy, well I would nae go that far, love.”

He thickens up his accent just the way his soft Southern English wife likes.

Sam’s eyes darken, and Malcolm swallows involuntarily.

"That’s a shame.”

Sam muses as she takes Malcolm’s hand in her own and slides it under the bed covers.

The first thought that occurs to him is when exactly did she hitch the tent up, and the thought immediately after that is WHO THE FUCK CARES.

Sam makes that noise, that noise she always makes when he’s…

Malcolm can’t pretend anymore, Sam has won, and that’s just perfect.

With one hand still occupied, Malcolm pulls Sam into a rough kiss, and when they part briefly he muses.

"I always had a lot of fun at the circus as a nipper.”


	6. Good Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Malcolm and Sam.
> 
> It's Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK, but I woke up super early because I forgot to sort my alarm, so I've decided to torture Malcolm and Sam by waking them up early as well.
> 
> Enjoy...

Malcolm opens his eyes.

Blinking himself conscious, the gloom in the bedroom signals that it’s still early in the morning, no more than five or six he’d hazard.

Far, far too early to be awake…

Did he just think that? 

Did Malcolm.F.Tucker, just suggest that it was too early to be awake?

How times have changed.

He can vividly recall pulling all-nighters followed by all-dayers, pushing himself on and on and on, he’d barely given it a second thought. 

Sleep was a luxury, and Malcolm had never had time for much luxury in his life.

What had he done it all for, he’d wasted his life…

That’s not true; Malcolm knows that’s not true.

Alright, maybe there was a curdle of truth.

Malcolm rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling above him, a wide expanse of greyish white.

He had waited a ridiculously long amount of time before he’d gone and got a grown up life, a proper life with Sam.

But in his defence, Sam had been married to someone else when he’d first met her, and he’d always been a bit slow when it came to ‘emotional maturity’. 

Discounting shagging of which he’d started at a ruinously young age, looking back now, Malcolm hadn’t had a proper girlfriend until he was 20.

An age at which many of his friends had been settling down or getting married.

Morag had been pretty and clever, and most importantly not overall demanding, in many ways she’d set the template for all of Malcolm’s future partners, that was of course until Sam.

Sam expects certain things from him, she’s never wanted to be the silent partner in the Malcolm F Tucker show, and she’s always wanted equal billing.

Malcolm turns his head awkwardly so that he can gaze at the face of his sleeping wife.

She looks younger when she’s asleep, the cares of the day having slipped off her face.

The strange thing is that despite the regularity with which Malcolm often brings up the massive age gap between them, HE never really feels it.

Everyone else may see it, but to him Sam is ageless, and when he’s with her he feels the same.

They just fit together.

Made for each other.

"Stop, staring at me.”

Sam speaks, her voice muffled against her pillow.

"I’m trying to sleep, and you’re putting me off.”

Without opening her eyes, Sam smiles.

Malcolm smiles back at her, rolling his body towards her warmth.

She huffs.

"What time is it, and tell me it’s something good like 10.30.”

Malcolm plants a kiss on the side of Sam’s cheek, morning breath be damned.

Malcolm’s lips graduate from the side of Sam’s cheek, to that spot on her neck.

"MALCOLM.”

She reacts instantly in a fit of sudden giggles.

"No Malc, stop, please, I’m tired, I want to sleep.”

Without even looking he can tell that she pouting.

God, he loves it when she pouts.

FUCK.

"Did all that rampant shagging last night wear ye out, love?”

Sam grabs Malcolm by the chin pulling his head up so that their faces are level, somehow and he honestly has no idea how this has happened, but he’s mostly lying on top of his wife.

"Oh please, you mean that whole minute of you getting all hot and bothered with yourself, because of my brand new nightie?”

Sam giggles.

"That was some of MA best shaggin’.”

Malcolm sounds indignant.

"I know.”

Sam teases him.

Just when Malcolm is thinking up some clever stinging retort to get his own back on her, Sam wraps her arms around his neck a pulls him into a kiss, a proper one.


	7. Like Watching a Baby Deer Learning to Walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam makes an offer...

It’s Sunday.

It’s sunny, actually sunny, blue sky, fluffy little clouds; heat the works, a perfect summer afternoon.

Malcolm has suggested a walk in the park, in a desperate bid to stop the baby crying, and well because Dean likes the park.

Dean has brought a ball, which he expects Malcolm to do something with, generally he leaves football and most physical activity to Sam, but she’s sat on a nearby bench deep in conversation with her sister, he can step up, he can try football.

Malcolm tries the beautiful game, and fails miserably, as he knew he would, but Sam is smiling at him, not laughing, she looks quite proud.

 

 

"It’s like watching a baby deer learn to walk for the first time.”

Bex observes through tightly clenched teeth.

Watching Malcolm as he attempts to run in that way that should never be witnessed by anyone, especially not in a park in broad daylight, Sam knows exactly what her sister means.

But, at least he’s trying, and that’s why she loves him.  
"Just keep smiling, he’s looking over.”

Sam tells her sister, and together the two women unite in a pair of broad, white smiles, that make it no where near their eyes.

Sam hazards a wave, and Malcolm falls over, tackled by an almost four year old.

Usually Sam would run over and see if he was okay, Malcolm not Dean, Dean’s fine, but she doesn’t want to show her husband up in front of her sister. 

For her part Bex seems to have forgotten all about Malcolm, concentrating on feeding baby Sammy, who has finally stopped fussing.

They fall into a comfortable silence, until…

"He’s not usually this fussy.”

Bex says.

"When we were living back at home, he cried so little at the start, I got him checked out by my Doctor, she said I was lucky. Maybe it’s the move.”

Bex is babbling, well for Bex this is babbling, for Sam it would be talking, nervously, but for Bex who is never anything less that perfectly composed and confident, she’s experiencing a bout of verbal diarrhoea. 

Sam wants to put her at ease, she just doesn’t know how to.

"We should probably think about ordering some things for Sammy, if you two are planning on staying with us for a while.”

Sam’s eyes widen as she plays the sentence back in her head, she watches Bex’s reaction almost in slow motion, as she realises that her simple statement of fact, sounds a lot like a question.

How long are you planning on staying?

"Oh Bex, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, what I was trying to say was,”

It’s Sam’s turn to babble.

"No, it’s fine. I understand, you didn’t ask for me to come here, we just showed up.”

Bex looks as if she’s about to cry, and Sam realises that she hasn’t seen her sister cry since they were very young children, she’s the crier.

Almost as if to prove a point, tears begin to well up in Sam’s eyes.

Fighting back the tears she turns towards Bex.

"I don’t want you to go. You and Sammy can stay with us for as long as you need. I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve got nowhere to go,”

In Sam’s case, like Bex’s, that wasn’t strictly true, after Malcolm had been sent down, she’d been inundated with offers from their parents to stay at the villa in Spain, even Bex had offered to host her out in Australia, but Sam couldn’t leave, she’d had to keep up her prison visits, and leaving the country would have been too much like running away.

That’s how she’d ended up living in a mansion with Malcolm’s hateful sister Cat. 

"That would be so good.”

The relief on Bex’s face is palpable.

But relief is quickly replaced by concern.

"Are you sure? You’re just getting things settled with your two, I don’t want to get in the way of that?”

Sam knows it’s not going to be easy, she’s also well aware that she’s about to make an offer to her sister without consulting Malcolm or even Chanelle first, but…

"It will be fine, the kids will adjust. Stay for as long as you need.”


	8. So Long...

Sam is avoiding him.

On the way home from the park, when Malcolm had casually reached from Sam’s hand, she’d shrugged him off, hurrying ahead to walk with her sister and the baby.

Things aren’t any better now they’re at home, Sam seems to want to hide from him, or worse run away, every time he thinks he’s got her cornered Dean or Bex appear, and Sam escapes, again.

Has he done something, no, it can’t be him, Sam never wastes any time when it comes to letting him know when he’s erred. 

Maybe it’s Bex, she doesn’t like him, and Sam doesn’t know how to tell him?

Malcolm mulls that option over for a moment, before deciding that he really doesn’t give a fuck what Sam’s sister things, it’s not like she’s going to be living with them indefinitely.

Then it clicks.

Stupid, slow, old fool, Sam has asked her sister to live with them indefinitely.

Really he should have seen this coming from the moment Bex turned up on the doorstep.

He’s more annoyed than angry, annoyed that Sam let herself get railroaded, annoyed that she hasn’t bothered to consult him.

Then he starts to think about all the ways Sam will probably try to butter him up, and he smiles.

Malcolm likes it when Sam tries to garner his approval.

He frowns.

But no, still annoyed.

Malcolm is still frowning, when Sam wanders into the kitchen carrying a pile of dirty washing.

She stops suddenly, glancing at him over the top of his own pants.

"So you know, then?”

Sam asks after a beat.

Suddenly Malcolm remembers a game he used to like to play, when things were hitting the fan, back in his old Number 10 days.

"Know what, what do I know?”

Unlike the past when he use to relish forcing panicked ministers to cough up their own guts, the game doesn’t feel the same when he’s playing against Sam, it feels hollow.

But before he can confess all he knows, Sam has beaten him to it.

"I’m sorry. I know I should have consulted you first, at least run the idea past you, but I felt bad,”

Sam pauses only long enough to take a deep gulp of air.

"You’re my husband, and we’re a team, and I don’t want you to think I’m not teaming with you.”

Malcolm smiles, and Sam for her part looks confused by her own choice of words.

He takes a step forward.  
"Oh Malc, I’m sorry.”

Sam looks lost; Malcolm hates it when Sam looks lost.

"Come on woman, this was bound to happen.”

He tries his very best to soothe her.

The next part he lowers his voice for, in case Chanelle should decide to stop sulking in her room or Bex walk in at the wrong moment.

"Remember the monster rabbits, and the fact that we were planning on adopting a baby, not a sulky pre-teen and a toddler. Ye’re sister and her baby, are just another couple of waifs, in ye’re caravan of strays.”

Briefly Malcolm toys with the fact that Sam is the only human-being on the planet who would take a chance on a total shit like him, but he leaves that part out.

Sam smiles.

Everything is alright.

Malcolm leans across the pile of washing and kisses Sam.

The kissing is witnessed by Chanelle who looks utterly disgusted as she flounces into the kitchen.


	9. On that Bombshell...

Any anxiety Sam had felt about inviting her sister and the baby to live with them, seems to have ebbed away, or at least that’s what Malcolm hopes.

He studies her profile carefully attempting to pick up on any of her little nervous tells, but there’s nothing.

She laughs at her sister’s joke.

The three of them are sat in the kitchen, finishing off the last of Sam’s homemade cheesecake, Chanelle, Dean and baby Sammy all already tucked up in bed.

It’s late, and Malcolm can’t remember the last time they did this, enjoyed an adult conversation with another adult.

They use to have people over a lot, mostly Sam’s friends, but sometimes Malcolm’s sister Cat and her husband Trevor, since the kids though they’ve retreated into a world of four.

Sam is holding his hand and every now and then, whether it’s conscious or not, she squeezes his fingers.

Malcolm has his other arm slung casually over the back of Sam’s chair, not touching her just enough.

Sam is the only one drinking, she’s on her third glass of wine, in the past before the kids, before they managed to get everything sorted out, when their life revolved around hope and death, she would have been on her sixth.

Malcolm doesn’t want to use the world alcoholic, he doesn’t want to think it, and anyway Sam’s drinking had never been that bad, he should know his had.

But she’d had a propensity to reach for a glass to medicate various situations, that was his fault, he’d done that to her, he’d opened her life up to fear and humiliation, was it any wonder she drunk a little too much sometimes… 

She had a better excuse than he ever did.

It’s not like that now, Sam is so much stronger than he’ll ever be, and she’d righted her course all by herself, without having to attend meetings, or swear of drink for life.

Malcolm snaps out of his train of thought because Sam is suddenly looking back at him with an amused and slightly puzzled smile playing over her features.

"Have I got food on my face, again?”

She asks, squeezing his fingers lightly between his own.

The downside of having another awake adult in the house, as apposed to two sleeping children, is because it impedes him from doing what he’d really like to do, which would be to spread his lovely wife across their kitchen table and bang her brains out, but he can’t because that would be impolite.

Instead, Malcolm releases his hand from Sam’s, and pretends to wipe something imaginary from the corner of her mouth.

Sam then gives him a look, it’s a look Malcolm knows fairly well by now, and he’s more than sure that his wife is now thinking the exact same thing, that had filled up his own brain only a moment before.

He flashes her a knowing smile, and Sam blushes.

She actually blushes, Malcolm reveals in the fact that after six whole years of being married, he can still make his wife blush with nothing more than a smile, that deserves, as Chanelle would say, a fist pump.

Bex clears her throat, and shatters the moment.

Malcolm’s brain engages, and he drags his attention away from Sam.

"So, what are ye plans?”

The moment the question leaves him, Malcolm frets that he might have stepped over some invisible line, usually he wouldn’t fucking care, but he knows how much Sam’s twin means to her.

"For the rest of my life, or just tomorrow?”

Bex shoots back with a grin, reminding Malcolm of how on the very few occasions that their paths have crossed, how much he’s always liked her.

"Well, we have some nice, fun DIY jobs for you tomorrow.”

Sam giggles, her hand back over Malcolm’s.

He enjoys the feel of the warmth, the softness of her skin, he also doesn’t fail to notice the WE, or how quickly Sam has fallen back into being a twin.

"Malc, loves DIY.”

Sam informs her sister, before Malcolm can form a retort that is either blistering or funny.

"It’s part of the reason why I gave up sticking hot pins in my eyes, I discovered flat pack furniture instead.”

Not one of his best, but Sam and Bex seem amused enough.

Sam gets up from the table, and beings to collect up the empty bowls.

"What am I supposed to be assembling?”

He quizzes his wife as she loads the dishwasher.

"A cot for Sammy, and I’ve ordered a wardrobe for Dean’s room.”

"That’s TWO things.”

Bex attempts to stifle a laugh, and fails miserably.

"Last time I checked, Dean already had a perfectly serviceable wardrobe.”

It’s not fair; Malcolm doesn’t want to spend his day crouching on all fours, while attempting to read gibberish.

"You’re going to move Dean’s old wardrobe into the spare room, so that Bex has somewhere for Sammy’s things,”

He’s got to move things about as, well…

"Well on that bombshell, I think I might head on up.”

After a quick hug with Sam, and a nod in Malcolm’s general direction, Bex beats a retreat out of the room.

Malcolm begins to sulk at the prospect of the day laid out before him, while Sam concludes stacking the last of the plates.

"Oh Malc, stop pouting.”

She chastise him sweetly, before taking Malcolm by surprise and settling herself across his lap, her arms find their way around his neck.

Malcolm’s mood begins to improve, especially when Sam leans in and kisses him.

She drops her voice to that low, sultry tone that never fails to melt Malcolm’s brain. 

"I ordered something else as well, and if you’re very good, and you do all of your DIY, I’ll let you have it tomorrow night.”


	10. Sexy Sex Times at the O.K corral.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm and Sam are enjoying some 'quality time' with the kids.

Flashback Central.

They’re stuck in traffic, proper nose to tail traffic, red lights that seem to stretch on forever.

The kids are bored, or at least they were before Sam suggested they create Pottermore accounts.

Pottermore, what a way to squeeze blood from a stone.

Chanelle is in charge of setting up the accounts, she’s sitting in the back next to her younger brother, the IPad in hand, reading off various nuggets of pointless, made up information.

For example, Sam is in the house Hufflepuff, what a surprise, and her wand is acacia wood and unicorn hair.

Chanelle is in Slytherin, and Dean answered the questions in such a babble that they all universally decided to sort him into Gryffindor, after all someone has to be in Gryffindor. 

Now it’s Malcolm’s turn.

Sam hands him a flask filled with steaming tea, hot and sweet just they way he likes it.

"You’re in Ravenclaw.”

Chanelle announces, and Sam manages to spray the front of the car with her mouthful of bottled water.

Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw, that’s not a house Malcolm immediately recognises, but then again, it has been a good couple of years since he read the books to his niece Issy, he’s forgotten most of what he knew about Harry Potter, information deleted to free up space in his already crowded brain.

"Ravenclaw.”

Sam is giving him a funny up and down look.

"That’s what it says. Malcolm is in Ravenclaw, hey that means we’re a set,”

"Slytherin,”

Chanelle points to herself.

"Gryffindor,”

She points at Dean strapped in his booster seat.

"Hufflepuff,”

Then she points at Sam.

And finally…

"Ravenclaw,”

Chanelle’s finger rests on Malcolm.

Sam immediately takes off her seat belt, twisting in the driving seat, she turns to face their adopted daughter.

"Chanelle, can I just see that a moment?”

Malcolm knows where this is going, he stuffs another chocolate éclair sweet from the carrier bag between his knees, and washes the confection down with a gulp of tea.

Chanelle hands over the IPad, and Sam stares at the image on the screen, then at Malcolm, and then she goes all quiet.

"Well, I suppose you do have you’re witty moments.”

The bridge of Sam’s nose creases when she smiles.

Her large brown eyes glitter mischievously, and Malcolm knows exactly where this is going.

"Right, let’s find out how long your wand is.”

Sam bites her lip.

"Oh, please,”

Chanelle gives a disgusted grown from the back of the car.

"Can you two stop making everything about sex, its Harry Potter, not sexy sex times at the O.K corral.”

Sam’s cheeks begin to burn furiously, while Malcolm fails to cover his smirk.

"No Chanelle, we weren’t…”

Chanelle snatches the IPad back off Sam with a glare that has the power to put even the great Malcolm F Tucker in his place.

"You’re both too old for sex, especially YOU.”

Once again Malcolm finds Chanelle’s index finger pointing directly at him.

"Actually, do you know what, let’s swap places,”

Ten minutes later Malcolm is sitting in the back of the car, deprived of sweets and access to Sam, while Chanelle is sitting in his place, munching on chocolate éclairs and laughing away with HIS Sam…

How the fuck did this happen…


	11. At Home With The Cassidys

Chanelle leaves for school in a sulk, refusing her usual lift, deciding to take the number 23 bus, instead.

Still brooding over Charleston, the French Bulldog.

Malcolm wasn’t particularly concerned for Chanelle’s safety, he knows full well the sort of life the girl had lived before they’d adopted her, a bus packed with commuters, mainly operating in a leafy, well-to-do suburb of North London would be nothing to her. 

Never the less, he still felt the need to lie to Sam, when she questioned him on the whereabouts of their adopted daughter, and why it was exactly that he wasn’t driving her to school, he told her that Mary Drake had sent a car for Chanelle.

He has never liked lying to Sam, the worst part of which is that she always believes him.

Him…

"I’m not sure that’s the most practical use of tax payers funds, but it is very sweet. We should give Mary something.”

Arsenic is the first suggestion that pops into Malcolm’s head.

"Don’t make a fuss about it love.”

Malcolm says, as he slides his arms around Sam’s waist.

He’s on the point of distracting her with some serious neck kissing, when two things happen, firstly Dean runs into the kitchen followed by Bex and Baby Sammy, and then the doorbell rings.

Malcolm doesn’t get to do any neck kissing, but on the plus side Sam seems to have forgotten about Mary.

"That’ll be all the crap ye’ve ordered.”

Malcolm observes as he sweeps Dean up into his arms, the little boy squeals happily.

"Oh Malcolm.”

Sam warns him, in that ‘not in front of the children’ tone of voice.

Baby Sammy begins to cry, so Malcolm with Dean still in his arms, makes his way into the hallway to answer the door to all of Sam’s crap.

 

 

"Are you still trying to build that?”

It’s been four whole hours, and yes Malcolm is still trying to assemble Baby Sammy’s cot.

He looks up ready to glare at his wife, but is surprised to see Bex looming over him, their faces might not be the same, but their voices are.

Malcolm clears his throat, while Dean bangs on the sofa cushions with his toy hammer.

"Have you read the instructions?”

Malcolm fixes Bex with his best bollocking face, but just like her sister, it seems to have no effect at all.

Cassidys are made of stern stuff, clearly.

"I’ve done nothing BUT, read the instructions.”

Malcolm complains bitterly surrounded by a sea of white painted wood, screws, and various other fixings.

He doesn’t know what goes where, or why, and it’s all just enough to stop Dean from swallowing anything.

He wants to cry, actually cry, right here in his sun filled living room.

Bex kneels down on the floor in front of him, tugging the instruction leaflet from Malcolm’s sweaty palms.

"It looks pretty simple; it shouldn’t take long if we do it together.”

Malcolm wants to kiss her, not like that, just on the cheek.

"By the way, does Sam know that you’re planning on having my son sleep in your living room?”

Malcolm blinks a Bex, and then slowly it all falls into place.

What had he been thinking, how the hell was he going to get a preassembled cot up the stairs?

"Ye my friend, have made a very good point.”

Bex giggles.


	12. The Devil in a Ballet Kit.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's part.

"To coin a term popular amongst my Year 7s, Sam you’ve got a face like a slapped arse, what’s wrong with you?”

Sam snaps out of her fug.

She’s sitting in a nice little coffee shop opposite her best friend Lucy, who is only down in London for the day.

Sam listlessly prods at her slice of organic, homemade, and dairy free, carrot cake.

"Nothing, it’s nothing.”

It’s everything.

Lucy stares at Sam with that horribly probing, I can read your mind, look she has.

Sam decides to just give in, to tell Lucy everything she wants to know and be done with it.

So she starts to tell her best friend about Malcolm and Bex, and as she weaves her sorry little tale, Sam realises how silly it all sounds.

"So what, you walked in on Malcolm holding your nephew, that’s it?”

Sometimes Lucy can be the most emotionally dense person in the world.

It was the way he’d been holding Baby Sammy, looking at her nephew, laughing with her sister, Sam had finally realised that, what she was seeing, and how happy he looked, that was a life she could never give him.

Sam goes very silent.

"And this has lead you in your oh so sweet, oh so loopy way, to believe that what, that your husband and your sister should be together? Because if that’s the case, I’m not sure Malcolm is Bex’s type, doesn’t she favour a sort of younger, Surf Bunny type?”

Sam forgets her inner turmoil and bursts into a sudden bout of giggles.

"Surf Bunny?”

The bridge of her nose wrinkles at the term.

"Yeah, Surf Bunny, is that not a thing, I thought it was a thing?”

Lucy observes with a wry smile, as she takes a bite from her triple chocolate cake, humming appreciatively.

Sam looks at her own slice of cake, which pales slightly with the comparison.

"It’s not a thing.”

Sam corrects Lucy, who simply shrugs at this new piece of information.

"All Surf Bunnies aside, you know that Malcolm has never been my favourite of your husbands,”

No, that had been Sam’s first husband Ed.

"but I have born witness to some truly horrific bouts of smoochie, smoochies between you two, and the way Malcolm looks at you, Sam it’s like Disney Prince Love, it’s horrific. Also, important side bar, don’t you two already have two kids, or don’t they count, cus you know, they’re adopted?”

Sam bristles at that, the way Lucy knew she would.

"Is that how you feel about Livia?”

Livia is Lucy, and her wife Meg’s eight year old daughter.

"Well frankly, the way Livvi’s been acting lately, I’m glad that little spawn of evil, never came anywhere near my womb. She’s the devil in a ballet kit, and that’s all Meg’s fault.”

Both Sam and Lucy laugh, although Lucy’s laugh sounds a little more crazed.

After the laughing stops, Sam sighs heavily.

"You’re right, I know you're right.”

"About Livvi and all the evil?”

Sam smiles.

"No, about Malcolm. I need to talk to him, don’t I?”

Lucy nods sagely.

Sam starts to feel a bit more like herself, again, and she starts to eye up Lucy’s slice of cake.

"Can I try some of your cake; you can have some of mine.”

Lucy eyes her suspiciously.

"I don’t want any of your cake, it looks like rubber.”

Despite this, Sam picks up her fork a shaves of a slice of Lucy’s cake.

"You always do this.”

Lucy complains bitterly.

"I’m stopping you from getting fat, again.”

Sam smiles, as she pops the fork into her mouth.

Delicious.


	13. Malcolm and The Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm's part.  
> For anyone who is reading, this is what Sam and her friend Lucy were discussing in the cafe.

Malcolm has DIY-ed.

He stands back in the doorway of what use to be the spare bedroom, and admires his hard work, watching as Bex tightens the last screw on the cot.

Alright, so it had been less of a collaboration, and more Malcolm passing screws and tools to Bex when she had requested them, but the point is, he’s never done anything like this before, not ever.

Sam usually does most of their DIY, and if it’s not her, then they ‘get a man in’.

Malcolm feels like a man, as stereotypical and sexist as that sounds.

Baby Sammy starts to cry, and Bex immediately rushes out of the room, while Malcolm just stands their admiring all his hard work.

He can’t wait to show Sam, she’s only downstairs working on the latest edition of her Angry Spider series, but it might as well be the ends of the earth, because when his wife is writing, Malcolm knows not to interrupt her.

She’ll surface sometime around lunchtime. 

Malcolm pads out the brand new cot with bedding, it’s hard to believe he was once this small.

He remembers his sister Cat, how tiny she had been when their parents brought her back from the hospital, a small bundle of trouble and tears; she’d never been anything else.

Bex is suddenly back at Malcolm’s elbow, Baby Sammy fussing in her arms, puncturing his bubble of nostalgia.

"Would you like to hold him?”

It still puts Malcolm off, the similarities between Sam and Bex’s voices.

He eyes Baby Sammy.

"He is your nephew, and I promise, he hasn’t got any teeth yet, thank God.”

It’s strange to think of Baby Sammy as being a part of his family, for so long the only nephew Malcolm has had has been his sister’s son Colin, and with the best will in the world he knows his back would surely snap if he tried to lift Colin now.

Of course he’d had nephews and nieces before, through marriage, through his marriage to his first wife Yvonne, he’d met them at her various family gatherings, but he’d never taken the time to even learn their names, he can’t even remember if they were girls and boys, or all boys or all girls, their faces have vanished from his memory.

He wouldn’t know any of them now if they past him in the street.

With Sam it’s different, he wants her to know that he’s genuinely interested in her sister’s squalling brat, that her family is his. 

"I’ve been out of the barin holding game for a while.”

He laughs nervously.

"Just don’t hold him upside down, or by the neck.”

Bex places Baby Sammy in the curve of Malcolm’s arms.

The last baby he held like this had been his niece Issy, who is now eleven going on thirty-five.

He takes the solid weight of Baby Sammy in his arms and against his body.

The fussing stops, and Sammy makes a face, Malcolm would swear it was a smile, but logically he knows it’s probably just wind.

He wishes he’d got to do this with Chanelle and Dean when they were babies, he wishes…well he wishes a lot of things.

Malcolm feels the energy in the room change, he hasn’t suddenly turned all ‘new age’ he just knows when his wife is in the room.

With Baby Sammy still in his arms, Malcolm turns to smile at his wife, and finds her staring back at him from the doorway her face completely unreadable.


	14. The Night Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is set the night before Sam has all the sence talked into her by her best friend Lucy.

Malcolm hops excitedly under the covers.

Despite the fact Baby Sammy had decided to do his ‘crying thing’ for most of the day, and the whole of the evening, coupled with Chanelle still being sulky and in full door slamming mode, hence the crying, he’s still excited about receiving his present from Sam for all of the DIY he’d assisted on.

She didn’t think he could do it, but he had, well he’d made a damn good job at playing assistant to her sister.

Assistant.

A thrill of excitement trills through Malcolm’s body, at the idea of Sam pretending to be The Doctor, he loves it when she does that.

Well, no, he loves it when she does anything, everything really.

He can hear Sam brushing her teeth in the en-suite, the whir of her electric toothbrush.

Malcolm hears the sound of Sam spitting, and the gargle of water rushing down the plughole, probably not the most exciting noises in the world, but who gives a fuck their both human.

Humans piss, and shit, and spit, and bleed, it doesn’t make them any less, Sam is still perfect.

His perfect wife makes her entrance into their bedroom, her hair piled up high on the top of her head in a very messy bun, wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms and a ratty old t-shirt, and he’s actually disappointed that her massive nightie hasn’t made an appearance.

Malcolm smiles at Sam, but she doesn’t seem to notice, she simply climbs into the bed next to him, and immediately begins to read.

He waits expectantly, and then Sam turns the page, and Malcolm realises that she is actually reading, that this isn’t a prelude to sexy times, she’s just reading her fucking book.

She’s forgotten about him, about her tantalising promise.

It’s not fair.

Jesus, did he really just think that…

When by all rights, he should either be still in prison, a local hobo, Piers Morgan or dead, but instead of those pretty frightful options, he’s sitting in bed next to the most amazing woman in the world.

But yeah, as Chanelle would say, you lot are fucking wankers, she’d told him that tonight in fact, twice, and for that he’d sent her to her room.

"Sam.”

Malcolm breaks the silence, as Sam turns another page.

"Hummmh.”

She responds without once looking at him.

"Sam.”

He tries again, thinking of a way he can phase things without sounding predatory or entitled, the last thing he wants is to demand sex of an unwilling wife.

"What is it, Malcolm?”

Something is wrong; Sam only ever uses his full name if he’s in trouble.

He wracks his brain trying to think of what he might have done, was it sending Chanelle to her room, no Sam had appeared to be onboard with that, so what, what has he done?

"Sam,”

Malcolm tries again, but is suddenly surprised as Sam leans half out of the bed.

He reaches out to try and hold her steady, but before he can she’s safely back on the bed.

With a complete lack of interest Sam hands Malcolm a small square present.

"There your reward for the DIY, I suppose it’s what you wanted?”

Malcolm blinks.

No it’s not what he wanted, what he wants more than anything is his wife back, not the cold, distant person next to him, he wants Sam.

It dawns on him slowly, horribly…

She’s finally woken up, she sees you for what you are, finally.

She doesn’t love you any more.

He deserves this, because god knows he’s never deserved to be as happy as Sam has made him over the last six years.

Malcolm feels the horrible weight of the present in his hand.

"Thanks, I’ll open it tomorrow.”

His voice is flat, he wants her to hear it, to know that he knows.

Sam voice sounds strangely thick as she says.

"I’ve kept the receipt, so let me know if you don’t want it.”

He nods stiffly, placing the present next to his glass of water on the bedside table.

He can barely look at the thing.

"I’m sure I’ll love it, ye’re always good a presents.”

It’s true; Sam always knows what he likes.

Malcolm briefly flirts with the idea of sleeping on the sofa, or pulling a book out himself and reading, but he’s too tired for words, and he can’t bare to be apart from Sam, even in sleep.

The way she always curls her arm around his chest…

He wants to cry.

How the fuck has this happened…

Instead he rolls over onto his side, his back turned away from Sam, the duvet bunched up around his head.

He’s been a fool, a stupid old fool, and this is his reward.


	15. Always

Malcolm has got bright blue paint in his hair, he’s also got a lot of it on his face and his hands.

He looks like a Smurf, a Smurf that’s melting.

What had possessed him, he’d learned before that Dean and paint just doesn’t mix.

The toddler is the reincarnation of Jackson Pollock.

This will probably come in handy at some point down the line for their bank balance, but not for their kitchen.

Their.

Malcolm’s not even sure if they are even a their, anymore.

Sam’s been distant, and he feels like he’s lost his right arm.

Only a couple of hours earlier he’d hoped things were returning to an even keel, when he’d woken up with Sam’s arm snaked around his chest, the familiar warmth of her body against his back.

He’d smiled.

But then Sam had woken up, and she pulled away from him, shrinking from his touch.

Malcolm hadn’t bothered to say anything, what was the point.

Besides he owes it to Sam not to get in her way.

There are going to have to talk about it, whatever it is, because it isn’t just them now, there’s Chanelle and Dean to think about, and those two kids have been through enough.

Is that how he’s going to play it?

Malcolm wonders to himself as he steps into the shower, the warm water battering away at him. 

Is he actually going to use their children to blackmail Sam into staying with him?

He can’t do that, can he?

He’s sunk low before, but this, really, SEROUSLY?

Eyes stinging from the toxic combination of water, paint, and a substance that feels suspiciously like tears, Malcolm reaches for the shower gel, which just happens to be Sam’s.

It smells like her.

His chest hurts.

He loves his wife, and the day before he was pretty certain that she loved him, so what’s changed, what did he do?

He’d do anything, anything, anything, to make things the way they use to be.

Malcolm needs Sam.

She is his life, he needs her, needs her to be in the world, in his world, with him.

Forever.

Or for as long as he has.

Selfish, selfish cunt.

Know thy self.

Malcolm knows himself well.

Malcolm starts to wash himself with Sam’s jasmine scented, rose infused shower gel, all the blue begins to slide down the plug hole.

He barely hears the sound of the bathroom door opening, but having been forced to take showers in an actual prison he’s attuned to the noises of his surroundings.

Through the haze of condensation and the spray of water, Malcolm can just make out something grey and dark moving, moving on the other side of the shower door.

Suddenly the shower door opens, and Malcolm has barely a second to react as Sam steps into the shower still wearing her clothes.

It’s ridiculous, and melodramatic, and Sam is crying.

Sam is crying.

"Oh Sam, my Sam.”

His hands cup the sides of her face, as she sobs.

Her eyes are wide and full of tears, when she asks in a horribly small sounding voice.

"I still am, aren’t I? I’m still your Sam?”

The fact that she even needs to ask the question breaks Malcolm’s heart all over again, how can she not know this?

He pulls her against his chest, kissing the top of her now wet hair.

"Always.”


	16. Companion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hhummm, not sure how much I like this, feels a bit rushed...  
> Anyway, for anyone reading, enjoy...
> 
> Also, what's in the box...

They didn’t make love in the shower.

Instead Malcolm had turned the water off, and then set about carefully removing Sam’s soaking clothes.

Between kisses…

He kissed the top of her head, and the tip of her nose, every touch of his lips against her’s sent a course of electricity running down his spine.

But above all Malcolm was gentle, always gentle with Sam, because she was soft, and sweet, and kind, and he loved her beyond any sort of sense.  
When he’d finished shedding Sam from her second skin, he’d wrapped her in her dressing gown, bundling her up in the warm, fluffy cotton, before drying her hair with a towel.

Her face, for as long as he lives, Malcolm will never forget the expression on Sam’s face, so absolutely filled with love, and wonder, and…

His throat had constricted.

So here they are lying in the middle of their bed, both wearing matching dressing gowns they’d stolen from some overpriced hotel, on a holiday Malcolm can’t quite place.

The rest of the world, everything outside the confines of their bed, their bedroom, on the other side of the bedroom door, none of that really exists, it’s all just stopped being.

He’s holding Sam’s hand, her hands are so small compared to his own.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t talk to you.”

Sam says weakly, her voice full of tears.

She just shut down.

She closed up on him.

Malcolm doesn’t blame her, he never blames Sam for anything, ever.

It’s all his fault.

"It’s my fault.”

Sam rests her other hand against the side of his face and smiles, that bright, brilliant smile of her’s.

"For someone so clever, you can be really stupid.”

Sam is the only person Malcolm would ever take a comment like that from, he’d have pulled the spinal column of anyone else, out through their mouth, literally.

He has spent time in prison after all, a low security, open prison, in the middle of the countryside, where when his time had been coming to an end, things had been so bad, that he’d been allowed to get a job in a nearby garden centre…hell.

Being apart from Sam was the hardest thing, that really had been hell.

"I saw you with Sammy, and I just, I started thinking about all the things you were losing out on by being with me.”

Malcolm should have seen this coming, because this is always coming, always there in the background, at least for Sam.

"I’ve never wanted kids, Sam.”

He needs her to hear this, to know this, because honestly Malcolm’s not sure how many times he can keep saying it.

He watches as her face freezes.

"I’ve had opportunities. Yvonne, always wanted kids,”

Sam tenses up at the mention of his first wife, he doesn’t want to hurt her, but she has to hear this.

"I never wanted them, not with her, not with any of them. But ye, ye’ve always been different. Ye’re all I want.”

Desperately, Malcolm wants Sam to know this once and for all.

"Ye’ve given me a life, a proper grown-up life. And brats, the last time I checked, which was when Chanelle was telling me to piss off this morning, we had two brats of our own. Ye have given me a life.”

"Chanelle told you to piss off this morning?”

That’s his Sam, she’s coming back.

"Focus.”

He grins manically down on her.

"I have everything because of ye.”

After that there’s nothing else to say, and even if he wanted to add anything else, he’s not sure it would fit around Sam’s mouth or the way she is kissing him.

They part long enough for each of them to catch their collective breath.

Sam’s eyes are sparkling.

"Would you like you’re real present now?”

Malcolm feels his own head bobbing.

Yes, oh very much yes.

"It’s under the bed.”

Sam grins, and it appears at least for now, everything has been forgotten.  
Malcolm leans over the side of the bed, and discovers a box, upon lifting the lid, his eyebrows almost leap off the top of his head.

"OH, my sweet, beautiful wife.”

"Do you like it?”

Pure innocence.

Malcolm’s brain stops working.

"Shall I put it on?”

Malcolm nods.


	17. Sweet Vanilla Cassidy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the length, and the lack of anything interesting happening.

Sam makes her way down the stairs and into the kitchen feeling decidedly flushed, and brushing several shades of red.

Balancing her baby son against her hip, Bex greets her with a smirk and says.

"You’re wearing your dressing gown?”

Her twin is of course right; Sam is wearing her dressing gown in the middle of the afternoon, and even though she’s been an adult for a lot longer that she really cares to remember she feel ridiculously embarrassed.

This is my house, she struggles to remind herself.

"What happened to knocking?”

Sam feels herself growing defensive.

"I thought you we’re out having lunch with Lucy,”

Bex always has a habit of saying the name of Sam’s best friend as if it was something truly disgusting.

She thinks she’s been replaced, by Lucy, by Meg, by Beth and all of Sam’s other friends.

Sam’s not quite sure at the point when they drifted, was it when they both went to the same University but Bex dropped out after a year and decided to become a Club Rep in Ibiza?

Or was it when Sam had gone back packing around South East Asia with her boyfriend, who’d ended up being her husband by the end of the trip?

Sam hadn’t invited Bex to her first wedding and her sister had been working in Australia when she’d married Malcolm.

She hadn’t intentionally planned for her sister to miss out on all of her nuptials; it was something that had just happened, in a similar way to how Lucy had ended up being her sort of bride’s maid at both.

Despite being the life and soul of every party, Bex never really talks about her friends in the same way Sam does, and in all the time she’d been staying with her sister in Melbourne no-one had ever stopped by her sister’s flat to check on her or Baby Sammy.

"I thought you’d appreciate a fresh pile of ironing, I didn’t hear you come in, I thought Malcolm was in the garden, I…”

Sam feels guilty, sorry that she’s never noticed how lonely her sister is.

"It was very sweet, but just KNOCK next time.”

Sam giggles, and then Bex smiles, and Baby Sammy blows a bubbles between his lips.

"I swear, we never want to see, sweet, vanilla Aunty Sammy doing anything like that EVER again, do we.”

Bex coos to Baby Sammy, who blows another raspberry.

Vanilla.

Sam folds her arms tightly across her chest.

"I’m not vanilla.”

She pouts.

"You certainly are not, poor Malcolm, I’d be surprised if he can sit down for the rest of the week.”

Sam feels her cheeks flame with fire.

"Right, I'm off to put some clothes on.”


	18. Sam, You're Dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/rubys-rewatch-review-peter-capaldi-era-2014-2017-into-the-dalek/ -My new review of the PCap era episode Into the Dalek is now up and ready to be enjoyed.

Sam is dreaming.

No, it’s not just a dream, it’s a memory.

It’s both, the dream of a thing, which once happened to her, a place she once visited.

She’s sitting on a stool at a round table, with a rough wooden top.

Sam knows this place, she remembers this place.

It’s bigger now, Sam cranes her next upwards, and notes how far the ceiling stretches above her.

She’s sat in some grand church, one of the ones she’d visited in Venice, while Malcolm had been suffering with what turned out to eventually be the flu.

Sam’s at her former brother-in-law’s wedding, she knows this, because she recognises the dress she’s wearing, and some of the faces floating around her.

That was one of the last public outings of her first marriage, before Ed decided to do his own very personal outing. 

It’s funny because Sam knows that her former-brother-in law’s wedding never took place in anything as grand as the churches in Venice.

There’s straw on the floor.

Sam isn’t alone; it slowly dawns on her that someone is sitting next to her.

She shifts in her seat, and then she sees him, Ed, he’s sitting next to her, braying with laughter.

Something grips at her heart, a horrible cold feeling.

The chill spreads to her stomach, and suddenly she’s standing, the stool having clattered to the floor.

No-one notices.

No-one notices in the sea of moving faces.

This isn’t right.

She shouldn’t be here.

Not with him, not with Ed.

Tears begin to roll down Sam’s cheeks.

She’s lost him…

She’s lost him…

He’s gone…

She never had him.

 

Sam wakes up with a jolt, opening her eyes into the early morning gloom of her bedroom.

She can’t shake the feeling, the feeling that she has lost something.

Sam turns, shifting her body under the duvet, and next to her is Malcolm in all his sleepy glory, mouth open, hair ruffled, dead to the entire world, even her.

Sam smiles, as she settles back into her pillow, next to her sleeping husband.

The only husband she wants to wake up to.

She rests her chin against his shoulder.

Almost instantly, Sam feels herself relaxing against the warmth of Malcolm’s body.

Her eye lids droop.

Sam’s so tired, and so relaxed in fact that she barely notices the sound of the garden gate slamming shut.

 

 

"I told you not to slam the gate.”

Chanelle grumbles in a low whisper.

Her entire body tenses as she strains to listen.

Nothing.

Is she happy about that or sad, pleased that neither Malcolm nor Sam are woken by the sound of the gate…

No-one will stop them now.

Artemisia looks suitable chastised, her wide eyes filled with a wounded look.

"Have you got the stuff I told you to bring?”

Feeling guilty, Chanelle quickly changes the subject.

"I’ve got a dog lead, and a bowl, and all of my holiday money.”

Artemisia turns her back on Chanelle, letting the other girl see her frankly huge back pack.

Chanelle nods sagely.

"500 hundred pounds in cash, but I’ve brought my Junior Saver card as well, in case we need more.”

Chanelle lets the fact that Artemisia’s Mum and Dad give her 500 pounds as holiday money sink in.

"Let’s go then.”

This is it, this is really happening.

Chanelle steadies herself, remembering that Dean will have a better life with Malcolm and Sam.

He’s the one they always wanted after all, she was just the bog-of.

Artemisia needs her.

"Thanks for running away with me.”

Artemisia smiles weakly.

Chanelle takes one last look at Malcolm and Sam’s house, before falling into step alongside her best friend.


	19. Happy Birthday Chanelle

Malcolm feels utterly useless as he watches Sam putting the finishing touches to breakfast.

Not just any breakfast, Chanelle’s extra special birthday breakfast.

Sam had told him in no uncertain terms, that if he tried to help in any way, no court in the land would convict her.

So, now he’s sitting at the kitchen table, his scratchy, stubble covered chin, resting against the palm of his hand as he waits for the Skype call to connect, while he silently laments at how shit their broadband has been recently.

His sister Cat suddenly appears on the screen in front of him.

Malcolm blinks at her sleepily for a moment, while he tries to remember exactly what she use to look like, before all the lasers, and the fillers, the last time he’d spoken to her on the phone, Cat had mentioned something about getting her face ironed.

Malcolm would be happy to iron his younger sister’s face, for a hefty fee of course.

"Did you get the presents?”

Cat asks, looking every inch the imposing empress on some sundrenched, millionaires only resort, her husband Trevor has clearly flown them all off to.

The last time Malcolm had checked, Trevor’s cancer was on the retreat, and while he wasn’t completely in the clear, there’s more room for hope.

"The big bag is for Chanelle, and the little one is for Dean.”

Not satisfied with spoiling her own children rotten, Cat has started to make moves in on Chanelle and Dean.

"Dean’s birthday is next month.”

Malcolm tries to tell Cat, who as ever, as always ignores him.

"You’re new to this parenting game, but take it from an old lag, always have a spare present for the one that doesn’t have a birthday.”

He can’t really deny her logic, but then he never could.

As if on queue Dean suddenly races into the kitchen, leaping up from his seat at the table, Malcolm just manages to catch the little boy before he runs into Sam.

"Steady there little man, what have we said about not running in the kitchen when Sammy is cooking.”

Dean just giggles excitedly, and Malcolm lifts him up into his arms.

"Let’s say hello to Aunty Cat.”

From over her shoulder Sam makes a face, which Malcolm presents he hasn’t seen, as he carried Dean over to the laptop.

Under a burning tropical sun his sister is now drinking a rainbow coloured cocktail.

Malcolm only half listens to Dean and Cat’s conversation, because Sam has dropped the spoon she was using to stir the baked beans.

Somewhat outside of the action, Malcolm studies his wife whose face has grown suddenly, horribly pale, and her sister who is clutching at a piece of paper and what looks like a mobile phone.

Bex had been sent upstairs to wake Chanelle up.

Malcolm’s stomach drops.


	20. Hanging on the telephone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here are some of my latest Doctor Who-Peter Capaldi episode reviews...enjoy  
> https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/rubys-rewatch-review-peter-capaldi-era-2014-2017-listen/ -Listen  
> https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/rubys-rewatch-review-peter-capaldi-era-2014-2017-time-heist/ -Time Heist

"I don’t care.”

Sam’s voice had been clear, and forceful, and it had been a lot time since Malcolm had seen her like that, not since his trail in fact.

Resolute, was the word that sprung instantly to his mind at the sight of his wife’s face.

"I don’t care,”

She had repeated the words again, as her soft fingers had found the sides of his face.

"I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t care who you have to fuck over. I don’t care how many people you have to pull inside out. I don’t care what it does to you. I don’t care what it will do to me. I want our daughter back.”

Our daughter.

Chanelle.

Malcolm lifts the phone to the side of his head, one ring, two rings, and then…

"Jamie,”

 

"Just bloody run.”

Chanelle shrieks at Artemisia, Charleston, the French Bulldog sitting happily in the back of her back pack, as she pelts along. 

An alarm suddenly screams into life.

Heart pounding, Chanelle finds a sense of odd relief as Artemisia finally starts to run.

They can do this.

She tells herself as they hurry along the corridor of the dog sanctuary.

Corridor after corridor, Chanelle desperately attempts to piece together a mental map for their escape.

Left then right, or right then left. 

"I don’t understand, we left some money, it’s not like, we’re stealing.”

Artemisia manages to pant out.

The manager of the sanctuary hadn’t wanted to let two thirteen year olds adopt a dog without at least one adult present, so they’d had to improvise, Artemisia had put all of her acting ability into faking anaphylactic shock, while Chanelle had managed to sneak into the area where the dogs were kept, and she’d find Charleston easily.

Now, well mostly now they’re on the run.

Behind them Chanelle hears the screech of the manager, throwing herself forward, she launches herself through the emergency exit and out into the car park, grabbing Artemisia’s sweat slicked hand and pulling her along.

They keep running.

Chanelle feels as if her heart is about to beat a hole right through her chest, but they keep running.

Running, and running, and running, until they’re standing on a high street Chanelle doesn’t recognise.

Finally they stop.

 

 

Sam sits in the car.

She had no idea why she’s sitting in the car, all she knows is that she needs to.

Chanelle’s phone rests in her lap, her letter in Sam’s hand.

How could this have happened?

Is she such a bad Mother?

Are they terrible parents?

Failure.

Sam’s eyes scan the letter again.

It’s a short scrawled apology for leaving, leaving Dean, leaving them.

The reasons are petty and full of teenage angst.

Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless.

Sam jumps at the door next to her opens, and Malcolm slips into the passenger seat, looking grey and tired.

"They we’re spotted at that fucking dogs home in Camden.”

Malcolm announces between tightly gritted teeth.

Sam doesn’t ask how he discovered this information, she just presses the ignition button and the car roars into life beneath them.


	21. The Angry Spider Saves the Day

Chanelle cautiously eyes Artemisia.

She’d asked the girl walking next to her, to wear something plain, preferably grey, Artemisia is wearing a designer t-shirt with a large glittery pineapple in the middle.

Labels, from her t-shirt to her trainers, Artemisia is covered in money.

Chanelle turns her attention to their surroundings, this isn’t the sort of place where displays of copious wealth go unnoticed, and they’ve already picked up an entourage, three very bored, very annoyed looking older teenagers.

Only 10 meters in front of her Chanelle can see a bus stop, she doesn’t care where the bus goes, she just knows that it’s the best thing for all three of them to be on it.

But the closer they get to the bus stop, the closer their shadows also get to them, they’re being herded away from the main drag, the busy high street.

Chanelle doesn’t like this.

The only bright side is that Artemisia hasn’t noticed yet.

Chanelle knows she has to do something, or risk getting mugged.

She stops suddenly, and turns, reminding herself that she isn’t afraid.

"Fuck off, yeah.”

A piece of imaginary gum finds its way into the corner of her mouth as she speaks.

Artemisia makes a shocked, gasping noise.

It happens before Chanelle really has the chance to react, one of the boys, the tallest, the leader, grabs Artemisia by the arm and proceeds to march her down a narrow gap between shops.

The other boys follow him.

Chanelle’s caught, she knows what she should do, run, ask for help, make a scene, but all that would mean leaving Artemisia.

The shadow of a bus passes.

 

 

Malcolm’s legs are bouncing away like mad in the foot-well, reminding Sam of the day they’d gone to get formally approved for adoption.

On that day, Sam had never imagined that things would turn out like this that their child, that Chanelle would run away from them.

Are they really terrible parents, is it only a matter of time before Dean packs his bindle as well?

She’d thought that they were honestly doing well, that Chanelle was happy even, although to be honest, happiness is one of the emotions, that has always been hard to tell with Chanelle.

Sam tries to pull her concentration back onto the road, as the SATNAV barks yet another instruction

Ordinarily, Sam has to strain to hear the robotic voice, because Malcolm and Chanelle are usually talking over the top of it.

Suddenly she wants to cry.

The tears never come, because suddenly Sam is being distracted because Malcolm is trying to leave their still moving car.

"Malcolm, what are you doing?”

Sam exclaims.

Seat belt off, the door is open, Sam thinks about stopping the car, but there’s another right up her arse, and it’s too late anyway because Malcolm has exited the vehicle.

He’s running, and shouting, and the car behind her begins beeping it’s horn.

Sam leans across the passenger seat, straining to reach the handle of the door, as she snaps it closed.

Distracted, she puts her foot down, and tries to find somewhere to park.

 

 

If anyone had asked Chanelle what she imagined the best outcome of being mentally manhandled down a back alley by yobs, she would never in her wildest dreams come up with the answer of Malcolm Tucker appearing out of nowhere, shouting and swearing in that weird Scottish accent of his.

But here he is.

Chanelle has no idea how he found them, but he’s here.

"Get the fuck away from my daughter, you…”

The rest of the sentence is lost to Chanelle, did Malcolm just call her his daughter.

The leader of the gang drops his hands from Artemisia, who immediately runs to Chanelle, crying.

"I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to run away anymore, I want to go home.”

Artemisia wails bitterly.

The three boys, all answer Malcolm back squaring their narrow shoulders, and Chanelle realises that they’re not actually safe yet.

Malcolm is standing his ground, and to her own great surprise, Chanelle suddenly finds herself reaching for his hand, squeezing it tightly, he squeezes back.

They’re all afraid, that is until Sam appears, looking flushed and clutching at her mobile phone.

"I’ve called the police.”

Sam warns the three youths in a firm voice.

One of the boys, the shortest of the gang, his eyes widen at the sight of Sam.

"Ain’t you that bird what writes them books about that pissed off spider, man my little sis, loves ‘em books.”

The boy makes a sucking noise between his teeth.

"You’re alright.”

He acknowledges with the nod of his head, Chanelle had been wrong, this boy is the leader, and the two taller boys follow the smaller one out of the alley.

Chanelle breathes again, while Sam bursts into hysterical sounding laughter, Artemisia wails even louder, and Malcolm keeps a tight, sweaty hold of her hand.


	22. Parenting the F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My latest Peter Capaldi era Doctor Who review is also up https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/rubys-rewatch-review-peter-capaldi-era-2014-2017-mummy-on-the-orient-express/ Mummy on the Orient Express.  
> Enjoy.

It was a pig of a day.

Malcolm sinks down into the sofa cushions, bone tired, and wrung out. 

He slips his glasses off, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

It wasn’t meant to be like this, it was meant to be a day full of cake, and sugar, and presents, but instead as soon as they had dropped Artemisia off at her home, the questions had started.

Why had Chanelle done it?

What was she thinking?

And so on, and so forth, over and over again.

The answers were the same, and painfully vague.

What emerged was that Chanelle didn’t have a clear reason for running away, and somehow that’s made it worse.

Perhaps, a bit of light mistreatment is what Chanelle deserves. 

No, no, no…

Malcolm doesn’t mean that, and he hates himself for even thinking it.  
Never the less, he did think it.

Before the dark thoughts get that little bit too dark, Sam suddenly appears rescuing Malcolm from the worst of himself.

Always, rescuing him.

He flashes her, a tired smile, or at least he tries too, it may just look like rigor mortis, with his face he can never be sure.

However, it seems good enough for Sam, who flashes him her own warn out version of a smile.

Malcolm shifts over making room for Sam on the sofa, in return she hands him a tumbler filled with something amber looking, and dissentingly whiskey tasting.

It’s a horrible racial stereotype, but Malcolm does like a good dram.

For a while they just sit there, side by side, drinking silently, or one of them every now and then letting loose a heavy sigh.

They’re all talked out, there’s nothing left to say. 

This is just parenting.

Malcolm never expected it to be so hard.

Or that he’d find himself suddenly revaluating the likes of Nicola Murray.

Small wonder the poor cow always had the demeanour and appearance of a damp, dirty dishcloth, she had four of the things to contend with, and by things Malcolm means children.

How did Nicola ever, even drag herself out of bed?

Sam rests her head against Malcolm’s shoulder, exhaling a contented little humming noise as she moves.

Malcolm makes his move, shifting his weight, he wraps his arm around Sam’s narrow shoulders, pulling her against his body, where she belongs.

The contented atmosphere doesn’t last long however, because suddenly Sam is punching his arm, really, really, really hard.

"Ow.”

Malcolm complains bitterly.

"What the fuck, was that for?”

"For exiting a vehicle while it was still moving, and for almost getting stabbed.”

Malcolm attempts to defend himself, but after the sudden assault comes all of the kissing.

Often the way with Sam.

"That was also for exiting a vehicle while it was still moving, and for almost getting stabbed.”

Sam smiles coyly, when they finally part.

Malcolm ruffles a hand across the back of his head.

For as long as he lives, he will never understand the woman he has married.

"What are we going to do about, Chanelle?”

Sam asks as she once again settles back into the warmth of Malcolm’s body.

"We’re gonna parent the fuck out of her.”


	23. What Happened to the Dog

Malcolm can’t sleep.

It’s been a long, long day, but still he can’t sleep.

His body has gone into siege mode; every part of him feels alert, and awake.

He’d left Sam back in the warmth of their bed, happily snoring away to herself, she could do with the rest.

It’s just him now, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the weird dog Chanelle had smuggled home with her.

That’s it, they have a dog now, the minute Sam had seen the pointy eared thing, and the expression on Chanelle’s face, they had official become dog owners.

Pets, how the fuck did Malcolm Tucker end up with so many pets…

Charleston, the French Bulldog just stares blankly back at him in bemusement.

Malcolm tenses as the sound of his breathing and Charleston’s panting is joined by something else, a soft footfall.

He turns in his chair expecting to see Sam’s tired, lovely looking face, but he’s greeted by Chanelle’s worn out, tear streaked expression instead.

Malcolm needs Sam, she’s good at this sort of thing, but Sam is upstairs fast asleep, and, and he can do this…

He once held the entire British Isles together by the sheer force of his own bloody will, that and a shit load of dirt, he can parent this child.

"I just came down for a glass of water.”

Chanelle lies badly, eyeing up Charleston who is stubbornly sat in his brand new basket.

Life of fucking riley, already.

Malcolm says nothing, he just nods, wracking his brains for words he can turn into sentences. 

Chanelle collects a glass from the drainer, and helps herself to some Evian from the fridge.

What ever happened to tap water?

He can hear Sam’s voice in his head, chastising him about all the chemicals they pump in to tap water.

Evian is not just French tap water then?

Of course, he’d never dare say a thing like that, he values his balls and his life far too much.

Besides, Sam usually, no always has a way of being right, so she’s probably right about this as well.

Chanelle stands at the fridge clutching her glass of French tap water, her back towards him.

Suddenly, Malcolm is angry, no he’s scared and he’s angry.

"You behaved like a real cunt today.”

He practically growls the words, without thinking.

Chanelle’s shoulders tense.

"What the fuck were you thinking?”

Chanelle spins around on her bare feet, Malcolm wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting to see on her face, tears, but her face is blazing with temper.  
She’s angry with them, with him.

"Artie is having a shit time at home, she hates school, I was being a good friend.”

He’s given her too much credit, he’d thought she’d be brave, come out and fucking say it, but instead she’s hiding behind her friend.

"Bullshit.”

Chanelle takes a step forward.

"At least she fucking needs me, which is more than I can say for you. And I might be a cunt, but…”

Her words fail her then, Malcolm just manages to duck out of the way as Chanelle throws the glass of water at him.

The glass hits the wall behind him, smashing in a shower of water and expensive shards.

"I thought you wanted me. I thought you wanted me, but you don’t want me.”

Chanelle suddenly dissolves into tears.

Malcolm doesn’t give the glass, or the new dent in the wall a second thought, as he pushes back his chair, and finds his arms around Chanelle.

She tries to struggle, but Malcolm holds on tight.

"You’re our daughter, you’re our daughter, and we will always want you.”

After that Chanelle stops fighting, but Malcolm keeps on holding tight.

"I love you.”


	24. Heroes and Villains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment, leave kudos and well just read...  
> Enjoy...

Four Months Later.

Malcolm’s not really watching the television; it’s just a flashing light, and a droning noise in the corner of the room.

Leaning against the living room wall, he glances off towards the sofa, where Chanelle and Bex are sat together a bowl of toffee popcorn between them, and Charleston sprawled out across his daughter’s lap.

This is his family, made and found and inherited.  
"You look like one of those annoying fidget spinner things, can you sit down or something.”

Malcolm always finds his sister-in-law’s voice off putting because it sounds so much like Sam’s, enough when it’s stuffed full of popcorn.

He gives Bex a look, and tries to pour in as much ‘why, haven’t you moved out yet’ into his look as possible.

Just like Sam, Bex ignores him.

Malcolm’s phone springs suddenly to life in his pocket causing him to jump a little, alright a lot.

It’s the taxi.

"The fucking taxi is here.”

Malcolm announces.

He doesn’t want to go to this stupid party, why is it that Sam’s friends always have parties, and why do they always have to go to them?

His next wife better not be popular.

Malcolm makes his way out into the hall, calling up the stairs.

"Sam.”

For a moment he’d forgotten about Dean and Baby Sammy, but a snuffling cry reminds him.

"Ah, Malcolm, I’ve only just got him to go down.”

Bex frowns at him as she pushes past, and up the stairs.

Malcolm’s death glare burns into the back of Bex’s head as she retreats up the stairs.

"What are you, again?”

He’s distracted by Chanelle’s question, turning to face her, he finds his daughter leaning against the doorframe, Charleston by her feet.

Malcolm glances down at his rumpled, badly fitting suit,

"I’m me.”

Chanelle frowns.

"I thought this was meant to be some stupid, heroes and villains costume party?”  
"It is.”

The point, and brilliance of Malcolm’s costume is completely lost on Chanelle.

"Malc.”

Malcolm turns at the sound of Sam’s voice, at least he hopes its Sam.

Thankfully it is, because there Sam stands at the top of their stairs, wearing a dress that makes her look as if she’s just stepped out of a painting.

Beautiful, fucking, beautiful.

"What do you think?”

Sam asks, as she carefully navigates her way down the stairs.

Fucking, fuck me, is the first thing that springs to Malcolm’s mind.

He reaches out for her hand, to help her down the last couple of steps, feeling her soft fingers in his palm causes Malcolm’s heart to do something funny.

Fuck it, once Sam is safely on the ground, Malcolm leans forward and kisses her as if he hasn’t seen her in months.

Chanelle and Charleston both make disgusted sounding noises.

"What are you?”

Chanelle questions Sam, when the pair finally part.

Sam does an excited little twirl as if her movement will be enough to enlighten.

Chanelle’s face remains quizzical, so Sam points to the large B hanging from a string of pearls around her neck.

"I’m Anne Boleyn.”

Chanelle just keeps on staring.

"Anne Boleyn.”

Sam repeats again.

"I don’t think you two understand the theme of the party, it’s not go as yourself,”

Chanelle points at Malcolm.

"or someone no-one has ever heard of. It’s heroes and villains, Batman, and Thor, and Doctor Who.”  
"Anne Boleyn is my hero.”

Malcolm has to smile, and he plants a kiss on his wife’s cheek.

"Anne, the taxi is here, love.”

He holds out his arm for Sam to take.

Chanelle and Charleston follow them to the front door as Malcolm Tucker and Anne Boleyn head off for the night.

 

 

Malcolm, Sam, Chanelle, Dean, Charleston, Bex and Baby Sammy Will Return in...

Malcolm Tucker and The Little Place in the Country.

**Author's Note:**

> I am not suggesting that it took Bex the length of the journey from London to Melbourne to give birth, Sam booked a flight for around the time she was due.
> 
> Also Sam was running on adrenaline, no jet lag.


End file.
